When Evernote was introduced in this course, I will admit, I was skeptical. I had been asked to use it for a course previously, but without any real training it did not appear helpful. After the application was explained, I felt like 1000 light bulbs were going off simultaneously! I can organize bookmarks! I can keep class notes and class resources in one place, rather than in two different places! I wonder how I can use this in teaching!?!
For EDC 503, I used Evernote for class notes. I also used skitch to markup “The Game of School” text and saved that into my course folder. I annotate the texts when I read, but afterward I have been writing brief summaries and responses, which are also in Evernote. That way, I can access my summaries and notes easily during class discussion. I have been collecting many resources related to the course content, i.e. articles and opinion pieces on ed reform, started out saving them in my EDC 503 notebook. I realized that this was cluttering up my course notebook, and made a new notebook titled articles- then underneath that, I have notebooks for article topics, like ed reform, Common Core, PARCC, etc. This way, I can sort articles of interest into appropriate notebooks. This is especially helpful considering that I am a twitter newbie, and I am constantly saving articles that I may want to reference (especially for the final reflection) in the future.
As I got more comfortable with Evernote, I knew that it was going to be the solution to organizing my lesson resources. I spent a (rainy) afternoon opening all 127 of my bookmarked pages and using webclipper to save them into Evernote notebooks. I have 23 notebooks that I have created. The notebooks have a broad title, like Grammar or a very specific title like “The Raven”. So, any lesson, resource, or idea that pertains to grammar goes in the grammar notebook. All teaching resources for specific works of literature go into their appropriately titled notebook. Shakespeare is a stacked notebook, with Sonnets, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry V underneath.
I still haven’t figured out a tagging system, and it is something that I think about every time I clip something. I think that I need to take the plunge and try out a system and then let it evolve from there, depending on what works and what doesn’t. I also wonder if, since I have so many notebooks with specific headings, I need tags? I think tags will be beneficial in the articles/research notebook, so maybe that is where I will begin, and then refine my system from there.
I am obsessed with trying to figure out how I could use Evernote in the secondary classroom. I see so many uses, both in research and note taking, but I guess students would have to have to have 1:1 technology. I still think, even if not for class notes, it would be great to organize research for the dreaded research paper.
I am thinking about developing a new lesson plan template to use in Evernote, so that I can keep a cloud record of my daily plans. Then, I could have a stacked notebook that contains each course. I think this would be incredibly effective for year after year planning, as well as for collaborating with coworkers. I could link resources from other notebooks to plans (I think that is possible?) and then also notate what worked and what did not within the actual lesson plan. This is a goal for after summer classes end and before school starts.
I am confident that I will continue to use Evernote. The only thing that I wish was that there was a text highlighter, but other than that, I have found Evernote to be incredibly helpful in organizing my thinking, research, and other web resources.
For EDC 503, I used Evernote for class notes. I also used skitch to markup “The Game of School” text and saved that into my course folder. I annotate the texts when I read, but afterward I have been writing brief summaries and responses, which are also in Evernote. That way, I can access my summaries and notes easily during class discussion.
I have been collecting many resources related to the course content, i.e. articles and opinion pieces on ed reform, started out saving them in my EDC 503 notebook. I realized that this was cluttering up my course notebook, and made a new notebook titled articles- then underneath that, I have notebooks for article topics, like ed reform, Common Core, PARCC, etc. This way, I can sort articles of interest into appropriate notebooks. This is especially helpful considering that I am a twitter newbie, and I am constantly saving articles that I may want to reference (especially for the final reflection) in the future.
As I got more comfortable with Evernote, I knew that it was going to be the solution to organizing my lesson resources. I spent a (rainy) afternoon opening all 127 of my bookmarked pages and using webclipper to save them into Evernote notebooks. I have 23 notebooks that I have created. The notebooks have a broad title, like Grammar or a very specific title like “The Raven”. So, any lesson, resource, or idea that pertains to grammar goes in the grammar notebook. All teaching resources for specific works of literature go into their appropriately titled notebook. Shakespeare is a stacked notebook, with Sonnets, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry V underneath.
I still haven’t figured out a tagging system, and it is something that I think about every time I clip something. I think that I need to take the plunge and try out a system and then let it evolve from there, depending on what works and what doesn’t. I also wonder if, since I have so many notebooks with specific headings, I need tags? I think tags will be beneficial in the articles/research notebook, so maybe that is where I will begin, and then refine my system from there.
I am obsessed with trying to figure out how I could use Evernote in the secondary classroom. I see so many uses, both in research and note taking, but I guess students would have to have to have 1:1 technology. I still think, even if not for class notes, it would be great to organize research for the dreaded research paper.
I am thinking about developing a new lesson plan template to use in Evernote, so that I can keep a cloud record of my daily plans. Then, I could have a stacked notebook that contains each course. I think this would be incredibly effective for year after year planning, as well as for collaborating with coworkers. I could link resources from other notebooks to plans (I think that is possible?) and then also notate what worked and what did not within the actual lesson plan. This is a goal for after summer classes end and before school starts.
I am confident that I will continue to use Evernote. The only thing that I wish was that there was a text highlighter, but other than that, I have found Evernote to be incredibly helpful in organizing my thinking, research, and other web resources.